


Clipped

by Jinmukang



Series: Whumptober 2020 [31]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Dehumanization, Experiment, Family Feels, Hopeful Ending, Hugs, Human Experimentation, Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Reading Aloud, Recovery, Self-Harm, Torture, Whumptober 2020, Wingfic, all other batfam members are here but im not going to tag them because they don't play a huge role, dicks doing it to himself cuz he angsty, no.31, only slight internal dehumanization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27296179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinmukang/pseuds/Jinmukang
Summary: The people who kidnapped Dick are fans from his circus days. They saw his parents fall, and they saw him never fly again. They decide they want to make him fly again, even if they have to break him to do it.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Everyone, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: Whumptober 2020 [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946413
Comments: 22
Kudos: 216
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Clipped

**Author's Note:**

> I DID IT. HELL. FUCKIN. YEAH. im literally gonna cry. im just. uhgjjhghghg im gonna put completed? on a series? for once in my miserable goldfish life?
> 
> thanks for everyone who has read and commented on my fics. i have anxiety with commenting back sometimes, but ive read and loved every single one ive gotten and will eventually comment back. yall are so kind, and im thankful for each and every one of you. without the support of everyone reading and commenting, i would not have finished this.
> 
> now... for the last time.....
> 
> enjoy.

They tell him that they were fans... way back when. That they used to follow along on Hayley’s tours and go as far as to attend as many shows as possible, just to see three performers fly. They didn’t care if the lion tamer quit, or if the bearded lady was sick, or if the contortionist sprained her wrist. They came just to sit in the front rows to watch John, Mary, and Dick—the best trapeze artists in the world—flying high above the crowd. It would sound flattering if it wasn’t creepy, especially all these years later as Dick tried to breathe through the agony, pressed against his stomach with his limbs strapped down like a bug with needles through all the little appendages. 

They say they went to the Gotham show. They say they saw his parents fall. They say they tried to find him. They say they’re sorry for not finding him quick enough before he was in Bruce Wayne’s care.

Dick hates it. Dick hates that with every passing year of his life, someone will always find him and give him another reason for his happy, joy filled memories of the circus to be tainted with villainy. He’s always in a state of pain now, hardly even able to hear their words, but he saw one of their faces. He _recognized_ one of their faces. 

He tries to writhe on the table. All it does is cause something connected to his back to twitch. They gasp, they laugh, they congratulate themselves. 

They say they missed him. They say he’s grown so big. They say they want to see him fly again. They say they’ve spent _decades_ learning to make him fly again.

All it took was a kidnapping, an unimaginable amount of agonizing serum injections, a multitude of surgeries where they gave him what painkillers and sedation they could and he’d wake up with pain seeping down from his back into his spine into his very bones.

By the time Bruce came and fought them all down into submission, Dick knew it was already too late. He didn’t need to hear Bruce’s gasp or Jason’s swear or Tim’s frightened sharp intake of air. He didn’t need Cass and Duke to help him sit up, he didn’t need to see Damian look at him with wide, horrified eyes. He didn’t need his family's terror to know he’s different now. To know the weight on his back isn’t his imagination. To know he’ll never be the same, because he’s different now, straight down to the little A’s and C’s and G’s and T’s of his DNA. 

He’s different now. 

And he doesn’t know if he can ever go back.

The rescue is all a blur. So much so that he’s only slightly aware of the drive back to Gotham... back to the cave. All he remembers is being cradled carefully in Bruce’s arms, feeling lighter than what he should, but more bulky thanks to the weight curled tightly flush against his back. He greets his awakening to find he’s laying on his stomach... and while he knows it’s so they don’t put pressure on his back, it also causes every single one of his nerves to sky rocket with anxiety and terror. He’s spent... _months_ on his stomach. 

He’s too weak and he cries. Couldn’t they have laid him on his side?

Someone calls his name, but he’s too deep in his own sorrow to listen. His family asks if he’s hurting, or if he needs something, or something along those lines, but all he can do is try to clutch the medical cot against his stomach and put strength into just one of his arms. 

The things on his back jerk violently and something crashes, and he wants to see the damage he’s caused, but the movement screwed up everything in his brain. His vision blurs and his stomach rolls, but thankfully before he can throw up, he’s out like a light.

The next time he’s awake, things are easier. Though, easy doesn’t necessarily mean okay. 

The next time he’s awake, he’s not okay. Far from it. But he’s on his side, the weights on his back are comfortably laid out behind him on what feels like another cot and a table to cover the entire expanse. He wonders briefly if they’ve looked at the... at the things on his back. Took samples. Plucked feathers. Blood tests. Bone marrow. Experimented on him in a way that’s so similar and so different from his former captors. He almost cries right there, but then he opens his eyes and he sees Bruce sitting on a chair besides him, instantly perking and giving a sympathetic smile the moment he sees Dick looking at him.

Dick then knows that besides laying out the w- at the things on his back, they haven’t touched them. Dick’s been violated a lot in his life, but never quite like this. His entire body is different now, down to the hollowness of his bones. 

Bruce wouldn’t touch him without his permission. Dick can see it in his eyes. 

“How bad?” Dick asks. He can feel every nerve in the parts of his body that shouldn’t belong to him, but he hasn’t seen them yet. He’s seen glimpses, but his captors were always careful to keep them either tucked to his back or spread out and strapped down to tables against his side. Dick asks _how bad_ , when in reality he wants to know _how ugly_.

Bruce sighs, looking so much older than what he is. People always get Bruce’s age wrong, especially when they see Dick first. Here Dick is, less than 5 years shy from thirty, and they expect Bruce to be well into his fifties. He’s not, he’s hardly into his late forties, but right now it looks like Bruce could be a hundred years old.

“They’re expertly attached to your spine,” is what Bruce says, and Dick closes his eyes, and pretends the report Bruce is about to give belongs to someone else. Anyone else. Someone other than Dick Grayson. “The wingspan is about thirteen feet...” Dick now tunes it out. Tunes out the weight, the possibility of _flight_. 

He’s heard _wingspan_ , and now it's all real. 

It’s not a weight on his back. It’s not a pressure in his spine. It’s not something he accidentally moves when he’s trying to move his arm.

Wings. They gave him wings.

Wings—he finds when he finally works up the courage to look—that are colored similar to the feathers belonging to a parrot. Similar to the red, green, and yellow of his circus uniform. He had almost expected black and blue feathers, but it seems that when his captors and _torturers_ said they were past fans, they truly meant it.

Red, green, and yellow. Some might immediately think Robin.

Dick just thinks of the circus. Dick thinks of his mom. His dad. The tainted memories that he now has to stuff into a jar. 

How badly does the world hate Dick Grayson to corrupt these memories? 

Cass tries to help. She says that they look pretty, and Dick appreciates it. He _does_. She says the colors are fun, and that they’re _him_. The yellow tips, the green accents, the crimson feathers on the inside. He just wishes they weren’t him. He wishes that he didn’t need to shift his balance the first time Leslie, Bruce, and the _vet_ —who they felt obligated to bring onto the team after much questioning and digging up on—let him stand. It’s dehumanizing, for these wings to belong to him. 

He doesn’t tell Cass that.

Leslie says she’ll research ways to help him. Bruce says things will get better. The vet, a nice lady by the name of Tina Butler, says that Dick can call her whenever he needs it and he shouldn’t feel any shame to.

And then they all expect him to go back to his normal life. They expect him to smile. They expect him to get out of bed. They expect him to interact and joke. Maybe they expect him to find a way to go out as Nightwing.

Night _wing_. He’ll have to change the name.

If he ever goes out again.

He has _wings_ now. Nobody has mentioned it, but until they find a way to remove the wings without destroying his spine, he has to choose a life. 

Dick Grayson can come out to the public about his kidnapping and involuntary body modifications, and stuff secret identities and nightlife’s into a locked box and bury it somewhere... or Nightwing can change his name and look and let Dick Grayson stop existing.

Dick chooses to not care. Dick chooses to stay in his room until someone calls him down for dinner. Dick chooses to hate himself. Hate the wings. Pluck out the tiny feathers he can reach just to throw them into the fireplace. 

He doesn’t think about how when birds are stressed, they’ll tear out their own feathers.

He just tucks the appendages that he doesn’t want close to his back and have never wanted to his back, then wraps a blanket around his shoulders to keep his chest warm and tries to pretend he doesn’t exist.

It works well for a week. It works through everybody passing by his locked bedroom door, it works through every meal hastily stuffed in his mouth whenever he finds time to go down in between everyone’s schedules to not talk to any of them.

It works until Jason bursts into his room, looks him up and down, takes in the bald patches of the wings, then grabs him by the hand.

“Jay...” Dick mumbles, trying to tug out of Jason’s grip, but it doesn’t work. Nothing works anymore. 

“We’re going outside,” Jason says. 

Fear curdles in Dick’s gut as he stumbles along with Jason. He doesn’t want to go outside. He doesn't want anyone to see him. With his free hand, he tightens the blanket around his shoulders and forces himself to ignore the softness of the feathers tickling the small of his back. 

Somehow, against all odds, they don’t run into anyone else while going downstairs and outside the back doors into the seemingly endless expanse of the Manors backyard. There’s strategically placed bushes and trees here and there, but it’s a good run away until they run into the forests’ of Bristol, and the surrounding property fences. 

There’s a soft breeze in the air, and the sun is... warm. It feels good through his unwashed hair. 

He hates that it feels good on the feathers as the outside air slips off his blanket.

“Sit,” Jason instructs after they have walked the expanse of the grounds and came across a small pond with a man-made stream leading into it. Jason plops himself down on a small boulder and sticks his bare feet into what’s definitely cool water. There’s a fish swimming in a circle further into the water.

Dick slowly lowers himself with unsure movements, careful to keep the wings pressed against his back, tied up by the blanket. Jason pulls out a bag that Dick hadn’t noticed he was carrying and opens the sleeve. 

He pulls out three books. 

“What one?” 

Dick stills; looks at the covers over one by one. No Promises in the Wind... Lord of the Rings... a big ol’ book of Shakespeare. 

“That one, I think,” Dick says, pointing to Shakespeare. Dick’s always liked Shakespeare, especially Hamlet. 

“Wrong,” Jason says, reaching into his bag to pull out a fourth book. “We’re reading Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.”

Dick can’t help it. He lets out a small, genuine feeling laugh. Jason carefully puts the other books back inside his bag and opens the book he probably planned to read from the beginning, but just wanted something to break the ice. Dick unconsciously settles and brings his hand to his chin to watch Jason read. Jason has such a nice reading voice. One that pulls you in. One filled with so much emotion that you forget your own and get sucked into the story and the characters and the imaginary problems...

So much so, that Jason closes the book close to thirty minutes later and stands up and Dick’s practically slammed back into his ruined body. 

“Let’s go,” Jason says, and Dick slowly stands up, careful of his center of gravity. 

“That’s it?” Dick asks.

“Yup.”

Dick frowns, but follows Jason back to the manor. 

As he walks, the breeze crawls under his blanket again and ruffles the feathers, practically chasing that always itchy feeling away. He risks moving his blanket so the breeze can better get to the wings. It feels really good. Better than wind through his hair.

He shakes his head and tightens the blanket again. Just because something feels good doesn’t mean it’s right.

-o-o-o-o-

Jason comes back around the same time the next day and grabs Dick by the hand once again. They make it back to the pond and sit down and Jason starts right where he left off.

Fifteen minutes pass before another body slowly sits down next to him. Damian. About two feet away, not making any move to come closer.

Dick wants him closer. He wants to hug and cuddle. It’s been so long.

But he’s afraid of the tainted wings on his back getting in the way.

The process continues over the week, each drop of fresh air becoming something that he looks forward to more and more every day. It’s the fifth day where he finds himself so engrossed in Jason’s storytelling that he doesn’t even notice that the blanket has slipped down his shoulder towards the middle of his back. Cass and Tim are out with them when it happens, and neither of them say a thing.

It’s the eighth day where Dick lets the blanket down almost fully. The wind feels really good, especially on the spots where he’s torn out his- the feathers. He’s been trying to stop. Someone in the family tattled on him to Tina about him pulling out feathers, and she gave him a cream that should help with the itching and soreness after a stern talking to that this is his body, and he’s hurting it even if he doesn’t want it.

Dick doesn’t think about it that way. They’re not a part of his body. They’re not his. They were grown from his back against his will.

He doesn’t want them.

But the wind feels good. And no one says anything.

And Jason’s really good at reading, even though they’ve gone through four books now. 

Four weeks after coming home, about two since Jason began his daily ritual of kidnapping Dick and bringing him outside, Dick decides to leave his room without the blanket on his own power. Hours before Jason is due to arrive. He sneaks past everyone, thinking softly to himself if it would be possible to make some sort of hoodie that could cover his chest but not squish the wings.

He goes outside and just walks. And walks. And it feels really, really good. Those little places of the wings where the torn out feathers are beginning to grow back practically scream with joy. 

He walks. Then runs, feeling the burning in his legs until keeping the wings against his back becomes too much. Too strenuous. Too annoying. He stops running and moves the wings twitch by twitch until they’re stretched out further than what his arm-span is. Until every single feather is alive and rustling. For a second, Dick thinks about working the joints until it feels natural, until he can work them up and down and _catch_ the wind, and maybe...

He closes his wings. But he doesn’t frown. He just looks back at the manor and thinks that maybe his life isn’t over. Maybe he can enjoy himself just a little. Maybe... he can turn this awful thing into something tolerable. He strolls back to the pond and sits down and waits for Jason and Damian and Cass and Duke and Tim and Bruce to all come out worried out of their minds because they couldn’t find him in his usual place in his room. 

Dick laughs. Stretches his wings, and secretly enjoys how they all look shocked. 

“I’m okay,” he says, and he believes it. 

Damian immediately runs forward, and Dick meets him with open arms. His wings don’t touch Damian until he slowly risks curling them around in front of him. And when they touch Damian, they don’t taint him.

He laughs, and for the first time in a long time, he feels hopeful that maybe everything can turn out okay.

**Author's Note:**

> i mean, i like this one? it didn't end in a bang this year like i was expecting, but honestly im whumped out.
> 
> speaking of whump, im not done! i have 2 fics in this series that i plan on continuing, AND, if y'all havent read... i also have a dick grayson centric bad things happen bingo series still going... so if you want more whump...... theres always that.....
> 
> basically, what im saying, whumptober may be over but dont expect me to all of a sudden write fluffy fics. whump is who i am.
> 
> anywho, thanks for reading! i hope ya'll liked the series. or at least just this fic. thanks again for the support! if you guys want more from me, i have a lot more fics on my ao3 or you can follow me @jinmukangwrites on tumblr. if you dont want more from me thats valid lmao
> 
> please leave one last comment? Id appreciate it. love you all! and thanks again


End file.
